Download: Roses in the Thornbush: How Marketing Can Leverage the Value of Recruiting
and How Recruiting Can Leverage the Value of Marketing

Volume or Precision(September 17, 2001) Which would you rather have: a great big pile of resumes or the right candidate? As a variety of businesses scramble to replace critical team members in the most awful of circumstances, this is the pivotal question in the future development of our industry. So far, we've concentrated on size as if we were a bunch of macho posturing adolescent boys. In our world, size implies more work while precision means a focus on effectiveness and cycle reduction.

Never before have we had to really consider the notion that our disaster plans needed to include immediate replacement of entire teams. Never before have we had to own up to the fact that recruiting and internal assignments are two faces of the same thing. If you remember, that century ended last week.

We're on the board of advisors of Hire.com and couldn't be happier to be associated with a real market defining winner. The Hire.com approach, led with Hank Stringer's enduring vision (you'll notice that we change our minds based on performance), is focused on a single mantra: Talent Matters. Their systems (from applicant tracking to Recruiting relationship management to candidate pool development to web hosting) emphasize the delivery of Recruiting effectiveness.

For those of you who have forgotten, the difference between efficiency (what most of the providers in our industry offer) and effectiveness is the difference between going faster and doing the right things. While doing the right thing will result in the speedier accomplishment of the important components of your agenda, simply going faster doesn't include an opportunity to ask if you are doing anything wrong!

It's simply no accident that the company is on the right track. With the exception of RecruitUSA, none of the other market leaders bring real, in the trenches, recruiting experience to the problem. Hank's long term devotion to improving the long term performance (effectiveness) of professional recruiters shows in the choices the company has made over many years now. From the integration of skills based applicant tracking to a solid recognition that recruiting is a relationship (and systems that support this) the company includes services that its competitors can not imagine fitting under a single umbrella.

Things have changed.

It's no longer the case that the human capital in your recruiting supply chain can be treated as disposable. The unthinkable has altered the playing field. What was a theory (that human capital supply chains mattered) just last summer is now our working reality. Don't spend you time on systems that don't offer a comprehensive view of your recruitment and hiring problems. Vote for excellence with your feet and move into the 21st Century. The Hire.com approach is as close to an ultimate solution as is available in the marketplace. Take a look at it.

Hats off to the folks at RecruitUSA for understanding the value and importance of our industry. They are offering their services at no charge to companies and government agencies that have been directly affected by the terrorism to the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. According to the press release, "It is imperative that we reach out to the victims of this disaster in any way possible,'' said Don Ramer, co-founder and CEO of RecruitUSA Inc. ``By offering our services we hope to help these devastated companies and organizations with their recovery process. It's a small contribution compared to the large-scale efforts and personal sacrifice exhibited by emergency services, unions and volunteers; but the nation is coming together to make a difference and we feel privileged to be part of it."

We should all be doing whatever we can to help the affected companies restaff and retool.